Video recording is commonly performed using cameras, cellular telephones, tablet computers, and other recording devices. In many cases, videos recorded using handheld recording devices suffer from unintentional movement that reduces video quality. One of the major causes of movement is hand shake, e.g., when a user's unintentional or involuntary movements while holding the recording device affects a quality of the video. Inconsistent panning and other motions can also degrade video quality. These undesired motions can cause blur, shaking, and other visible flaws in recorded video footage.
Shaking of the recording device can result in an equally-shaky video unless that shaking is compensated, for example, by an image stabilization mechanism. Optical image stabilization (OIS) can decrease shaking and blur present in a video by mechanically moving components of the recording device, such as a lens or the image sensor. However, the operation of OIS systems can sometimes introduce artifacts, and OIS systems are generally limited in the amount of motion that they can compensate. Similarly, OIS systems may incorrectly compensate for intentional movements of a recording device, such as panning by the user. Electronic image stabilization (EIS) can also reduce shaking present in video, for example, by aligning and shifting image frames based on analysis of the images. However, not all EIS techniques are reliable, since processing can sometimes be confused by subject motion, noise, and camera motion blur in the captured video.